I think we’re on a roll here with picture blogging, but here’s another. This one is from Google+, the newly-launched social network hoping to take a chunk out of Facebook’s dominance in this market.
Irony from Google Plus…
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Category Archives: Blogosphere
TEDxDeadSea: Everyday Inspirations
A copy of my talk at TEDxDeadSea last month is now available on the TEDxTalks channel at YouTube.
TEDxDeadSea 2011
Just a quick note: TED is coming to Jordan in the form of TEDxDeadSea this Saturday (April 30, 2011), at the Kempinski Hotel in (cue tautology) the Dead Sea, Jordan.
I’ve been honored with the opportunity to speak at this event, and will be discussing my take on entrepreneurship and some of the obstacles of running an international company from the Middle East.
I’m looking forward to all the exciting speakers and performers that will be at TEDxDeadSea and would love to meet anyone interested in engaging in some quality, thought-provoking talk! In the meantime, you can follow me @mqudsi, NeoSmart Technologies at @neosmart, and TEDxDeadSea at @TEDxDeadSea…
Twitter search results truncated after downtime
It seems that after yesterday’s extended downtime for Twitter (which no one really raised much of a fuss about, since it’s just another routine day for tweeps worldwide — unlike, say, Skype) has some (severe?) repercussions: search results are being limited to the past ~6 days for low-volume queries.
A quick search for “git tower” on Twitter returns results limited to the past six days, only. (A quick shout-out: Tower.app for OS X gets our award for best Mac development tool of 2010!) And the same goes for searches for “NeoSmart” or “EasyBCD.” (Unfortunately, none of these topics are anywhere near “trending” on twitter, and the low volume of search results serves to prove the point).
Is Twitter Actively Censoring Human Rights Activists in Palestine?
Quick background: earlier today, IDF soldiers stormed a relief flotilla/convey headed towards Gaza carrying food, medical supplies, and other relief materials in an attempt to bypass a blockade of the Gaza territories. The raid on the flotilla resulted in the death of 16 aid workers.
A post on twitpic earlier today asks
Can’t get why #flotilla is not trending; censored, why?
and articles on the web search for explanations, since it’s very clear that flotilla is indeed a trending topic, going by the trendistic results (see below).
Some are saying that twitter needs to manually approve trending topics to prevent abuse, etc. but there’s something that doesn’t add up: why is twitter actively blocking searches for #flotilla?
You can check it out for yourself: for the past hour or so, searching twitter for #flotilla turns up the dreaded “Something is technically wrong” page but searching for any other #topic works!
As they say, the proof is in the pudding (images after the jump):
2048 Comments…
Just a quick thank you to all our loyal readers, contributors, members, and commenters over the years. Our most popular blog post on the site has just reached the über-geeky number of 2048 comments in the 2 years 3 months and 23 days since it was posted. For more geeky conversions, read on.
- 2.31 years
- 2 years, 3 months, 23 days
- 27 months, 24 days
- 120 weeks, 4 days
- 844 days
Obviously 2 years is a long time… but 2048 is an equally great number.
Thank you!
Android: A Fragmented Platform or Not?
If you were to believe the latest headlines at Business Insider, Android is a fragmented mobile platform and has a negative effect on the applications, for developers and end-users alike. Android is currently in a heated battle with the other two big names in mobile technology (the iPhone and the BlackBerry being the other two), and this is a serious matter definitely worthy of discussion.
But Dan Frommer’s allegations in his latest post on BI don’t really add up. Frommer contends that the official twitter app for Android, which only works on Android v2.1 and up, is proof that Google’s mobile OS isn’t as “unified” as the competitors, and that this is a sign of early-onset serious fragmentation that will only get worse down the line. The thing is… it’s not.
It’s true that Android, available for deployment on any device manufacturers are willing to bundle it with, faces certain compatibility issues. With a multitude of devices, each with its own mostly-unique set of hardware and features, creating software that will run the same for everyone isn’t as easy as it is on the iPhone. But it’s nowhere near as much of an issue as Frommer makes it out to be.
4Chan Strikes Again, Hiding Porn in Kids Clips on YouTube
Please note: that this sort of post is what the losers at 4Chan get a kick out of and look forward to seeing, it’s clear that they get a perverse sort of pleasure out of hearing these complaints, but isn’t possible for anyone with a shred of dignity to let events like this go without speaking.
4Chan, a group of immature script-kiddies that anonymously post online and organize “attacks” against various groups, organizations, and websites, are it again. This time, it’s not the Church of Scientology they’re attacking, but innocent children. As the BBC reports, members of 4Chan have been uploading videos containing explicit sexual content in droves to YouTube today, specifically targeting children.
The videos uploaded by members of 4Chan consisted of children’s clips that start off innocently enough, showing cartoons and other rated-G material usually targeted at children around 5 years old, but soon enough change to videos of adults engaged in sexual activity. 4Chan has the uncanny ability to strike a nerve, driving even the most liberal of internet users to condemn their behavior as pure evil. The problem is, the anonymous 4Chan members are perversely motivated by this sort of response, and cannot be shamed into bringing an end to their disgusting activities.
Verified Accounts: Twitter’s Next Attempt at Making Money?
How much would you pay for people to know you’re really you? That the updates coming in every 2 minutes on that twitter page come from yours truly and not someone else… someone else pretending to be you?
If you’re like most people, the answer is not much. But there are people out there that really care, and with good reason. If you’re the FBI, Oprah Winfrey, or one of the million other celebrities currently on Twitter, you probably don’t want someone out there passing themselves off as yourself while posting fake updates to an account literally millions are watching.
Some people to whom money is not an issue already pay thousands of dollars for meaningless SSL certificates – something tucked away in the corner of your browser window that no one pays much attention to. But imagine if Twitter were to start offering “verified accounts” that have been authenticated as belonging to a particular person or institute… how many of these celebrity accounts would suddenly turn into cash cows for Twitter?
Excellent Customer Service Means A Lot
At a time when the human touch comes at a premium, it’s always a relief to find a company or two that reply quickly, politely, and efficiently to customer support requests.
And the two companies that have impressed us with their support? Pubmatic and Assembla – both excellent startups that we highly recommend in their individual fields. Pubmatic is an ad-revenue optimization service that intelligently chooses between different ad providers to maximize your ad impressions and CPM rates. Assembla provides quality hosting of SVN and other services that cover all aspects of the software development cycles for teams & small companies.